Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses

After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses
reviewed on + 254 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3


*laugh* There are so many books I received before this one, but I couldn't resist starting this one. And I couldn't stop, I had to keep reading. I really intended to put it aside and finish it later, but it kept calling to me.

This was a fascinating, sometimes horrifying (in the "oh my word, they did WHAT?" way), often amusing book. It journals the trials and travels of famous corpses, and corpse bits. Heads, hearts, ashes, as well as the entire body are traced through all sorts of odd and strange events.

The reasoning behind the corpse-stealing, the head-hunting, etc is fascinating. Sometimes the enemies stole the body. Sometimes the friends did. Sometimes random guards did. A peaceful burial is not guarnteed!

The writing style was smooth and easy to read, giving enough information to keep it interesting, but not so much the stories bogged down. I do wish the author hadn't felt the need to italize "after the funeral" every time he used it, but that's a minor point. And he just couldn't resist a pun here and there, but there were not too many....just enough that when you let your guard down, another appeared!